Summer 2015 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf

Contributor(s): Nick Giles, Michael Hayman | Business as usual is over. Belief is the new currency and to succeed you must follow new rules: purpose as the route to profit; mind share to gain market share. At this event you will discover the secrets of some of the world's most renowned business leaders, and find out how to harness the power of purpose to win in business. Michael Hayman (@michaelhayman) and Nick Giles (@nick_giles) are the co-authors of Mission: How the Best in Business Break Through and the co-founders of Seven Hills, the highly acclaimed campaigns firm founded to generate momentum for Britain’s explosive growth companies and most exciting entrepreneurs. Michael is an alumnus of LSE. Erik Eyster is a Reader in Economics, and Academic Director of the LSE Summer School at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox | We have been told for years that war between great powers is a thing of the past: something that has been consigned into that proverbial dustbin of history. Yet today serious writers and influential strategic thinkers in the USA and China are now suggesting that war in East Asia is a very real possibility as China rises - and becomes more assertive - and the United States supported by its Asian allies seeks to limit China’s reach. But how real is the danger of war? Is this just wild speculation by old style thinkers who have not caught up with globalization? Or is the threat real? In this debate between two experts we shall seek to answer these difficult but important questions.

Contributor(s): Professor Fawaz Gerges | Fawaz A. Gerges is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies. He wasalso the inaugural Director of the LSE Middle East Centre from 2010 until 2013. Gerges’ most recent books are The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World (Cambridge University Press, January 2014) and Obama and the Middle East: The End of America’s Moment? (Palgrave Macmillan, September 2013). On the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, Oxford University Press released Gerges’ book, The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda.

Contributor(s): Ryan Pyle | Join adventurer and renowned photographer, Ryan Pyle, as he spends months exploring and photographing Western China’s remote Sacred Mountains in an effort to better understand these most sacred Tibetan regions. His human-powered adventure is “one of the ages” as he explores the remote provinces of Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan. Born in Toronto, Canada, Ryan Pyle (@RyanPyle) spent his early years close to home. After obtaining a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto in 2001, Ryan realised a life long dream and travelled to China on an exploratory mission. In 2002 Ryan moved to China permanently and in 2004 Ryan became a regular contributor to the New York Times. In 2009 Ryan was listed by PDN Magazine as one of the 30 emerging photographers in the world. In 2010 Ryan began working full time on television and documentary film production and has produced and presented several large multi-episode television series for major broadcasters in the USA, Canada, UK, Asia, CHINA and continental Europe.

Contributor(s): David Smith | Sunday Times economics editor and best-selling author David Smith leads us through the mire of government policy and long-term economic trends to paint a vivid picture of how we got to now – and where we might go from here. David Smith (@dsmitheconomics) is economics editor of the Sunday Times and the author of a number of books including The Dragon and the Elephant and the best-selling guide to economics Free Lunch. This event marks the launch of his new book, Something Will Turn Up: Britain’s Economy, Past, Present and Future. Sushil Wadhwani is the founder of Wadhwani Asset Management LLP and a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Dr Wadhwani was educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he obtained a BSc (Econ), MSc (Econ) and PhD (Econ).

Contributor(s): Tim Marshall | Foreign Affairs Broadcaster and Journalist, Tim Marshall, author of new book Prisoners of Geography explains how decisions made by world leaders are constrained by geography. It is true that to understand world events (such as President Putin's invasion of Crimea and events in the Middle East), you need to understand people, ideas and movements… but if you don’t know geography, you’ll never have the full picture. Tim Marshall (@itwitius), journalist, writer and broadcaster, is best known for his reporting and analysis of events in the world of foreign affairs and international diplomacy. Whilst at Sky News, Marshall covered twelve wars over a twenty-four year period. He is the founder and editor of 'thewhatandthewhy.com', a web platform for journalists, politicians and students to share their views on world events. Charlie Beckett (@CharlieBeckett) is the founding director of POLIS, the think-tank for research and debate in to international journalism and society in the Media and Communications Department.

Contributor(s): Lord Meghnad Desai | Lord Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician. He unsuccessfully stood for the Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2008. Starting as an economics lecturer at LSE,in 2003 he retired as Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, which he had founded in 1992, and remains Professor Emeritus at LSE. Desai has written extensively, publishing over 200 articles in academic journals, writing a number of books, and he still writes regularly for two leading Indian newspapers. He published abiography of Indian film star Dilip Kumar entitled Nehru’s Hero: Dilip Kumar in the life of India in 2004, which he has described as his “greatest achievement”. His latest book is Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One.

Contributor(s): Professor Frank Wilczek | In his new book, which he will discuss in this public lecture, world-class physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek argues that beauty is at the heart of the logic of the universe, a principle that had guided his pioneering work in quantum physics. As his book looks to demonstrate, this quest has also guided the work of all scientific pursuit in the western world, from Pythagoras and Plato to Galileo and Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. Indeed, Wilczek looks to show us just how deeply intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. A Beautiful Question is the culmination of Wilczek’s life work, a work that looks to combine the age-old quest for beauty with the age-old quest for truth. Frank Wilczek (@FrankWilczek) won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a graduate student at Princeton University, when he was 21 years old. He is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT.

Contributor(s): Gerard Grech | The extraordinary growth of the UK's Digital Economy reflects all the paradoxes of British culture and history. What has been the impact of the creative entrepreneur and disruptive technology on the way we live, and where could it take us next? Gerard Grech (@gerardgrech) is the CEO of Tech City UK. Gerard has 15 years experience in the world of digital media, web and mobile. His international experience in London, Paris and New York has given global vision and local expertise, spanning digital product development, business strategy and venture capital. Before that he was a new media journalist and started his career in the music business. Max Nathan (@iammaxnathan) is Deputy Director of the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth and a Research Fellow at the Spatial Economics Research Centre at LSE. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at NIESR. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).

Contributor(s): Virginia Postrel | Drawing on her path-breaking new book, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, Virginia Postrel cracks the code of this mysterious and surprisingly pervasive phenomenon. She identifies the three essential elements in all forms of glamour and explains how they work to create a distinctive sensation of projection and yearning. Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) is a Los Angeles-based author and columnist whose work spans a broad range of topics, from social science to fashion, concentrating on the intersection of culture and commerce. Her previous books are The Substance of Style (2003) and The Future and Its Enemies (1998). She is a regular columnist for Bloomberg View. She has been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Forbesand its companion technology magazine Forbes ASAP. Shani Orgad is Associate Professor in Media and Communications at LSE.